Soft Landing [HDS]

Soft Landing is a site-sensitive sculptural intervention, a large vinyl floor-panel which separated into two parts, and installed across two adjoining gallery spaces. Developed from the research project; How Do They Hold?, this practice-led investigation responded in part to the unique spaces at the Florence Trust gallery, while underpinning the curatorial design of the group exhibition; Their Floating Attention, in which the work featured. The main section of Soft Landing was located in the largest gallery space (of the three), it’s dimensions and scale replicated the footprint of the (first) smaller gallery. A section of the large floor piece was cut-out and relocated to the first space (of the three). The viewer meets the cut-out vinyl section first, foreshadowing the much larger floor panel in the preceding gallery space. Specifically devised as a type of mirroring device, Soft Landing both reflected and inverted the spatial footprint of two adjacent gallery spaces. The viewer experiences a ‘recalling’ as they proceed through the gallery spaces. The floor-based panel sets up a correlative interplay, or doubling-effect, which has the capacity to destabilise the viewers perceptual receptiveness. Soft Landing was in direct dialogue with three sculptures by Laura White, across two of the spaces in the Florence Trust gallery, furthermore the sculptural piece was in a wider dialogue with all the artworks displayed in the exhibition. Soft Landing [HDS] (2025) Floor panel (Vinyl and acrylic paint) 530 x 380com & 380x90cm